The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1887-12-23
A FLOODS AWFUL WORK.

An Area Extending Over 1000 Square
Miles Inundated by the Overlooking OF
the Yellow River in China-Eieyen Pop
Lives Lost, and Millions are Homeless
and starving-8ne of the Worlds Great
est Eatastrophes.
SAN Francisco, Dec 16-The steamship
City of Sydney arrived yesterday afternoon
from Hong Kong and Yokohama
Chinese papers give details of disas-
ter occasoned by the Yellow river over
flowing its banks in the province of
Honau, and describe it as one of the
most appalling occurrences Ia loss of
life and property recorded in recent
times. The river broke it's bank ON the
evening of September 20 southwest of
the city of Ching Chow, and not only
completely inundated that city, but also
ten other populous cities The whole area
is now raging sea, ten to thirty feet
deep, where it was a densely populated
and rich plain The former bed of the
Yellow river is now dry, and the present
lake was the bed of the river centuries ago.
The loss OF life is incalculable, and the
statement is made DJ missionaries that mill
ions of Chinese are homeless and starving.
Thomas Patton, one of the American mis-
sionaries, writing from Honau province
under date of October %, says:
1.-THE newly-gathered crops, houses and trees
are all swept away, involving fearful loss of
life. The country was covered with fine winter
braid, which is gone, and implies the complete
J destruction of next years crop. Bread, bread
is the cry of thousands who are on
the river bank. Benevolent people go in
boats and throw bread among the masses here
there vi h
the requirements. The mass of people is still
being increased by continual arrivals, even
more hungry than the last. There they sit,
stunned, hungry and detected, without a rag to
wear or morsel of food Mat huts are being
erected for them to the west of this, but what
it will be in two months can not conceive
The misery is increased owing to the bitter cold
weather"
The Yellow river has long been known an
China's sorrow, and the present disaster
has served to reassert it's right to the terri
BILE title. AS yet details of the disaster are
very meager. Tt has occurred in a district
where but few foreigners are, and reports
furnished by the officials and published in
the Peking Gazette convey very inadequate
particulars of the extent of the loss of life
and property and the sufferings of the sur
vivors. The Governor in Honau reports to
the throne that "nearly all the people have
been drowned in the district reached by
the water, the survivors being those who
escaped to high ground or took refuge in
trees, where they remained till they were
rescued"
This gives but little impression as to
what the extent of the disaster really u.s.
The Chinese Times states that in the province
of Chilli, where disastrous foundations
have also occurred, there are 100000 peo-
pie homeless, representing those whose
lives were destroyed, and adds that the
missing in that province is trihing COM
pared with that caused by Huango-Ho, or
Yellow river.
The extent of ground swept over by over
Whelming food, given in English figures, is
over z 900 square miles, and the land thus
submerged formed part of one of the
richest and most densely populated plains
| of Northern China. The necessity for lib
eral aid may therefore be imagined AL
| ready considerable sums have been con-
tributed toward the relief of the sufferers.
The Emperor of China has given 2, 600, OOG
of taels, and the Chinese have started sub
scription list in Shanghai, to which foreign
ers have contributed literally.
| Millions have been rendered homeless,
and entirely deprived of all chances of earn
| ing their livelihood, for their fields will
either become permanent lakes or uninhab-
| liable swamps 1t is feared that the dis
| tress which will be felt during the coming
winter will equal in intensity the famine of
| ten years ago, when charitable donations
| contributed from all parts of the world were
utterly inadequate.
1t is stated that owing to the action taken
hu hn Vol 1,ixr Hor
| toward the sea- but seems content in con-
| verting Eastern Honau and Northern Ngan-
| whui into a lake 1t may ultimately flow
| into the sea through Kiangon, or it may
| even possibly join the Yang tse-kiang.
The Yellow river has always been noted for
| its vast and destructive floods, which have
| from time to time caused it to inundate the
low-lying country on either side of its banks.
| According to Chinese geographers, the Hwang-
| no takes its rise on the "Sea of Stars" on
| the eastern side of the Bayen-l1ara Mount
| aims, in the Monaghan province of Ko.
| honor, where it has gained for itself the
name of Ah-urh-tan, or Golden river, from the
color of it's water. For some miles it runs in
two streams, and when united takes at first a
| southeasterly course. Next, trending in a
northeasterly direction, it traverses the province
| of Kan-suh and passes northward through
| the Great Wall until it reaches the
| rising ground in the neighborhood
| of the In-shan. Thence curving to the south.
| east and south, it re-enters China through the
Great Wall, and continues its southerly course,
| forming the boundary between the provinces OF
| Shen-se and Shan-se as nfar as Tung-kwan.
| Here it makes sharp bend and runs nearly
| due east to Kai-fung Foo. In the neighbor-
| hood of this city it enters on the great
| eastern plain of China, and the alter
| ations which have taken place in it's bed
| between this district and the sea have earned
| for it the elldeservea title of 1.-THE Sorrow of
| Ham," According to the Chinese records this
| portion of the river has changed it's course nine
| times during the last $500 years, and has emp.
| tied itself into the sea at as many different
| mouths, the most northerly of which is repre-
| sented as having been about thirty-nne de-
| grees latitude, or in the neighboohood of the
| present month of the Peiho, and the most
| southerly being that which existed before the
! last change in 1S51-53, in thirty-four degrees
| latitude. The breaches that were made in the
| northern bank of the river east of Kai-fung Foo
| during the floods of 1851, 1852 and 1853 caused
| its waters gradually to overflow the low-lying
! country to the northward; and these after
| spreading over belt of country about twelve
| miles in width, struck the bed of the Tatsing
| river, and having forced their way into the mar
row, clean-cut channel, followed it to the sea-
| The result of this change has been that the old
| course of the river is dry.1
| Reason Sudden@y Gives Way.